Registry
Advisers Limited was founded in 2001 by two former senior
managers of Companies House, the companies
registration authority for Great Britain. David Durham had
been Chief Executive of Companies House Executive Agency and
Registrar of Companies in England and Wales, while David Walke
had been a Deputy Registrar who had fulfilled a series of senior
management roles within the organisation.

Companies
House had been engaged in providing advice to other registries
since 1991, when David Walke carried out a brief study in the
British Virgin Islands, leading to on-line services for local
agents and the introduction of document imaging. This led
to a request for advice on the development of registration
facilities in Anguilla, where, after considering the situation
in various other territories involved in providing 'offshore'
companies, our report proposed the creation a facility for
on-line registration by overseas agents. Paul Jones, a
senior analyst from Companies House, drew up a system
specification which provided the basis for subsequent systems
development. Subsequently an International Advisory
Services team, under the leadership of David Walke, undertook
projects in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, but in 2001
Companies House decided as a matter of strategy to discontinue
its external advisory role in order to concentrate on its core
business and development of its services.

While the
company directors, David Durham, David Walke and Paul Jones, together with
the associated consultants, have a range of skills and
experience that would enable them to fulfil various advisory
roles, in practice the company has specialised in advising
governments and official bodies throughout the world on the
development of services for registering companies and other
businesses. In these areas we can offer our clients the
benefit of unrivalled expertise.

The company
advises on all aspects of registration, including:

development of the policy and legislative framework

organisational issues

operational procedures and documentation

computer
systems

alternative means of providing public access to information

staff
training and management seminars, and

promotion
of registry services.

'One-stop
shops' for business registration, bringing together the
functions of different agencies so as to simplify procedures,
save time and reduce costs, have had particular prominence in
our recent work.

Our corporate philosophy requires an holistic
approach to development of registration services. We regard
the
legislation, organisation, procedures and systems as
interdependent. Any changes to the law should have regard to
their practicality, while changes to systems and procedures must
recognise the constraints of the legislation. There is also a
need to be conscious of the underlying policy and purpose of the
activity: while recognising the legitimate needs of government,
information on registered companies needs to be made available
to the business community in order to build market confidence.
This should be a consideration at the earliest stages of any
development.